I wonder how many communities will be blocked from hosting their own games, and forced to stick with ASE. I'm reading comment after comment from people saying they won't buy this until there is a reasonable option for private hosting. I am one of them.
Though I am disappointed W/C would allow such harm to an entity that has generated so much success (private hosting community), I am not at all surprised. I have been involved with ARK since its original release. Where it really counts the developers and publishers have proven to me time and time again, that supporting the gaming community with quality well thought out content is NOT their priority. Rather selling what they can, when they can, no matter how broken it is. You can thank the creative gaming community for the success ARK had.
I don't know what you did wrong to create a situation where small communities can not host this game, but if you don't find a better way forward I can not imagine the new game will have anywhere NEAR the same success. Just take a look through your steam page for ASE, do you see ANY other games on that platform with the same level of community engagement? Private hosting was the reason for this. Don't turn your backs on us.
Our community will just stick to ASE until we hear further word on this issue.